Clay

by Tony Bertauski

  The fear of living was still a cold lump in her chest.

  An old woman stops in the hall and stares. A young man, however, walks boldly past her. He’s vaguely familiar, his hair prematurely gray.

  “You’re awake,” he says.

  She shrinks from his comforting reach. He steps back and looks at Paul. He resembles Nix, but there’s a difference of about twenty years. The hair, though, doesn’t fit. She attempts facial recognition, green lines racing through her vision. There’s no outbound connection to the Internet.

  “I was an old man when you last saw me.” He sits across from her. “I had reconfigured my facial features. The hair isn’t as malleable as flesh. This is what I look like in real life.”

  Real life? What does that mean anymore?

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re at the farm,” he says. “You’re safe.”

  The old woman’s face is darker than the shadows appear. Jamie continues staring, not remembering any discussion about her. She seems irritated, but finally relents.

  “My name is Cali Richards,” she says flatly. “You’re safe in my house.”

  Jamie doesn’t believe her. Her body language suggests she didn’t invite them. There’s a vague recall of Nix explaining the facial reconfiguration and a promise that he’d help, but not where they were going.

  “How does your arm feel?” Cali asks.

  “I can’t really feel it.”

  “You suffered a compound fracture. Unfortunately, your biomites are exhausted from years of abuse. I don’t think I need to tell you how close you are to charring. Your body will have to heal itself.”

  “Why not boost her?” Paul asks. “Seed the break.”

  “She’s at 49.9%. We’re not doing that.”

  “What are we doing?” Jamie asks.

  Cali takes a bowl of eggs from the refrigerator. She puts a pot on the stove then cracks a hardboiled egg on the counter, peeling the shell under running water.

  Nix jaws clenching.

  There’s a chat session between them. Nix looks up just as a warm sensation trickles inside Jamie, a sort of honey-sweet emotion that bubbles from inside her chest. Jamie is enveloped in the invisible arms of an all-loving mother. She doesn’t know why this happens, doesn’t care. For the first time in forever, she doesn’t want to crawl out of her skin.

  She feels safe.

  “Start with this.” Cali puts the hardboiled egg on a plate. “Give that some time to digest, then eat the soup.”

  They watch her take a bite. The attention keeps her from swallowing the egg whole. The silence is broken only by the ticking clock.

  Cali leaves.

  Nix follows her into the basement. Paul attends the pot of soup, stirring it with a spoon while Jamie finishes the glass of water and indulges in the warmth that feels like home.

  I’m safe.

  35

  Nix turns the glass knob. Cali’s bedroom is unlocked.

  The bedspread is wrinkled, the pillows hardly dented. She wasn’t sleeping. Maybe she was lying down every once in a while, but she wasn’t sleeping.

  Stress is her amphetamine.

  He hadn’t seen her in days. He didn’t stay awake for long, his body insisting on frequent naps. He spent the nights on a raft, forever paddling toward distant peeks. No matter how long he struggled, the raft never reached the shore.

  An athletic, dark body moves past him. Raine’s image examines the empty bedroom. Her green cargo pants are rolled to the knees, exposing muscled calves. A high-pitched ring haunts his hearing. He shouldn’t project her into being. His biomites are still recovering from the trip, but it’s the only way to see her.

  Raine’s bare feet silently stride toward the dresser to study the framed photos of Nix’s late parents as well as Cali’s late husband. There’s also one of her daughter, Avery. They surround a stencil drawing.

  Life is suffering.

  The memories are captured in photographs, reminders of another life. The happiness had made the fall that much greater, the pain that much deeper. Now all that’s left are pewter frames with fading photos.

  Patterns of frost are crystallized on the window. Snow drifts look like frozen waves in the backyard. Icicles hang from the old shed near the trees, icy daggers pointing at firewood.

  “That’s the last thing I did.” He taps the glass. “Cut that wood.”

  It’s still chest high, every log still in place. It’s rotten now.

  He grabs the cell phone from the dresser, flips it open. The buttons respond with melodic tones.

  “She uses this to pretend she’s clay. It’s so naïve, a future artifact of a dying world.”

  “Nothing wrong with it, Nix. Biomites aren’t for everyone.”

  “Clays are the new Amish. Do you know where the world would be if everyone did that? There’d be no new discoveries, no transportation, no modern medicine. We’d be gazing at the stars instead of traveling to them, just wishing things would be better instead of making them better. There’d be no you, Raine.”

  He drops the phone on the bed, takes down the photo of Avery. She’s missing two teeth.

  “God loves growth, Raine. Isn’t that what life is about? Growth? He gave us the ability to conceive this technology for what purpose? Biomites are the vessel that carries our identity to new worlds like ships carried people across oceans to discover new lands.”

  “Who are you arguing with?”

  “It’s their fault, you see. None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for clays like Marcus Anderson.”

  “They’re not all like him.”

  Raine watches him rub the glass with his thumb. She never met Avery. She would’ve liked his niece. He’s sure Avery would’ve loved her.

  “What’re you doing in here?” Cali stands in the doorway.

  Nix jumps up, picture frame clutched in both hands. His sister looks so old. Despite the costume, the reconfiguration of her features, she wears the familiar mask of despair: the slow blinking eyes, the heavy corners of her mouth.

  “Just thinking about when we moved here, how I used to cut the wood and stack it. Then I was thinking how we built the lab and planned on taking a few years to heal and then move on. This place was supposed to be a pit stop, remember? We weren’t supposed to hide in the clay for the rest of our lives. What happened, Cali?”

  “I don’t need to explain myself.”

  “No. You got good at that.”

  “Don’t make this about me. You brought them here, you had no right…no right.”

  “If they were a threat, the bricks would already be here.”

  “That’s not the point.” She snatches the picture, replaces it on the dresser.

  “I can’t let you rot like this,” Nix says. “You’re just withering.”

  “That is not why you’re here. This is about you getting what you want, against my wishes. You know how I feel, don’t pretend this is about anything else.”

  “That’s why you’re punishing me?”

  Cali closes the door, gently. She pushes her hair from her eyes, the tension draining from her forehead.

  “I can’t dream, Cali. I can’t get back to Raine. You did this when I was unconscious, didn’t you?” She folds her arms. “Why do you keep fighting it? You could build your own Dreamland, Cali. You could bring back Avery, do it right this time—fabricate her instead of pretending she’s alive.”

  “You’re addicted to Dreamland. You can’t live in this world and the dream. You need to accept the world we live in.”

  “And have this life?” Nix slams his fist on the bed. “Just stay locked up and hide? Is that what we should do? You deserve better, Cali. I can’t let you do it.”

  “You’ll go insane if you keep dreaming.”

  “You had no right to take Raine away!”

  “And you had no right to expose me.” She jabs her finger at him, her hand quivering. “You arrive on the brink of charring, you bring strangers into my life. This is my wo
rld, Nix. I did not invite them. And you need to accept the fact that I don’t give a goddamn about Raine. Dreamland is not a new reality, it’s a dream—a fantasy. Accept that.”

  Nix paces across the room. He stands at the window, watches a bird hover over the trees, wings catching a draft higher.

  “Just give me what I want,” he says. “We’ll leave. You can go back to your life in the clay.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Reset my biomites, open Dreamland. And read the nixed pill inside Jamie.”

  “I’m not reading her.” Nix turns, swallows a rising knot. “And no one’s leaving, not yet.”

  “What do you mean you’re not reading her?”

  “You want to use her to find a fabricator and I’m not doing that.”

  “Jesus Christ, Cali! Just let me use the lab, then. I’ll do it myself. Why are you doing this?”

  “You know why.”

  He resists throwing his fist through the window. She’s still pissed. He can’t blame her. She needs a few days, maybe weeks, to cool off.

  “You can’t kidnap them.”

  “You kidnapped them, Nix. Not me. Why would you bring Paul? He’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him. Besides, I was able to hide Jamie with him driving.”

  “And almost killed yourself.”

  “I just need some help.”

  “You’ve made a mess and I’m cleaning it up. What’d you think I was going to do?”

  “Not this!”

  She holds her ground, unflinching. Her eyes are tired, mouth slack. She smells as old as she looks.

  “This isn’t fair. I let you play out your Avery delusion when I knew you shouldn’t,” he says.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

  He curses through stiff lips, yanks the door open. He wants to slam it like he did when he was little and she wouldn’t let him have his way. He looks back.

  Cali is staring out the window.

  Her shoulders are shaking.

  What have we become?

  M0THER

  Dreaming the Dream

  Josh Stanton sneezed.

  He hated sneezing. It was like licking metal shavings off an aluminum sheet then blowing it out his nose.

  He climbed off the bus holding his backpack against his chest. His life savings were inside. It wasn’t much, but it was everything he had. He didn’t trust the post office, had to pick it up in person, never let it out of his sight.

  The parking lot was littered. Josh avoided eye-contact with the lady on the second floor. He locked his apartment door behind him, breathing heavily. It was here. Finally here.

  The apartment was sparse: a TV and a couch. The lounging chair was in the middle of the room, extra padding duct-taped to the faux leather. It was for comfort, not looks. Josh didn’t invest much in this world.

  His investments were in his mind.

  Josh closed a tiny gap in the heavy drapes and went to the kitchen. He took a long swallow of whole milk from the jug, swishing it around his mouth, coating his tongue and throat before swallowing. Whole milk neutralized the metal-taste. Without it, his tongue was like copper. His body dipped in lead.

  Charred.

  That was the official diagnosis. His biomites ran hot, circuits were shorting out. If he didn’t back off his habit of dreamweaving, he could expect to taste steel for the rest of his life. And, the experts said, he could trigger a spontaneous shutdown.

  What do they know?

  They also said unassisted dreamweaving was impossible. No one, they said, has ever experienced a lucid dream state without external stimulation. And that’s where they were wrong. Josh had clocked up to ten minutes of real time in a Dreamland before he started to char. He hadn’t done it since, but he’d done it.

  He figured he’d try what was in the box. If that didn’t work, nixes were next.

  Dreamweaver 2.0.

  It was a metallic claw. The tips were smooth discs. It was custom fit for Josh’s measurements and promised to ease the charred symptoms by reducing biomite activity. The test drive at the lab induced a short, lucid dream state. He could even feel it. He’d never achieved tactile sensation in his Dreamland.

  Josh got comfortable. The dreamweaver was heavy. The quality is in the metal. The kit came with everything he needed, only Josh swapped out the power block with one of his own. He got the plans off the Internet. He lay back in the padded lounger and slid the dreamweaver’s cold fingers over his head.

  He immediately fell through inner space and landed in Dreamland: a medieval castle, a long sword on his hip. Where had he left off?

  Ah, yes. The war.

  The men followed him into battle. Whoever heard of a king leading the charge? Josh fought valiantly, slaying as many of the enemy as any man on the battlefield. He was drenched with the smell of blood.

  They celebrated with mead and hog. They sang and laughed. That night, Josh made love to his queen. She moaned with pleasure. His orgasm was explosive.

  As the days in Dreamland passed, his body became sluggish. The nights got darker and the days dimmer until he just felt like sleeping. Eventually, he didn’t wake up.

  The neighbors found him a week later.

  The cause of death was starvation and exhaustion, in addition to extreme charring. The company claimed he circumvented the safety feature that prevented long-term dreamweaving by changing the power cell. They improved the product, but, after several more related deaths, were forced to discontinue the mobile dreamweaver unit.

  Instead, they focused their investments on sanctioned dream cafés. And continued to make billions.

  36

  March arrives with no sign of spring.

  Snow sparkles in the early light. The crust breaks beneath Cali’s boots, her breath transformed into dense steam. She pauses at the fence to taste the morning, feel it pinch the end of her nose. She savors the moment. Ever since Nix arrived, these moments have felt numbered.

  The horses emerge snorting from their stalls. They greet her with rubbery lips and humid breath. The water trough has frozen. Cali uses the blunt end of an ax to break it up, releasing the tiny bubbles trapped inside. The jagged chunks swirl with each blow, rising back to the surface. She chips at the bits and pieces clinging to the sides.

  Is that what I’ve become, a trapped bubble?

  Has this domed farm become her trough, keeping her safe and stagnant? She always rationalized that she was free to think, that she chose this simple life, that she had little choice, otherwise. Nix had proven her wrong, stepping outside the dome in search of a fabricator.

  And she just watched.

  Perhaps Paul will be an ax, come to shatter the frozen elements of her life. Maybe Jamie. She could be her daughter, fill that void Avery left behind. Cali couldn’t help submerging the girl in her own perception field, soothing her aches. Cali is familiar with that pain; she couldn’t let Jamie have it, too.

  It’s what a mother does.

  The auto-fill valve doesn’t appear to be working. It’ll need to be replaced. She works the nut loose with a pair of folding pliers.

  “Still not sleeping?” Paul is standing in a stall.

  One of the horses is startled. Cali pulls her cap over her ears, wonders how long he’s been watching.

  “I’ll sleep when this is over.”

  “When will it be over?”

  “You tell me.” She walks past him on her way to the tack room.

  The feed buckets are in the sink, food stuck inside. She searches for an auto-fill valve on the shelves, swore she had purchased an extra one. She pulls a tool box from beneath the sink, feels Paul fill the doorway.

  “What are you doing in the lab?” he asks.

  “Cleaning up messes, Paul.”

  “You mean me and Jamie.”

  “You aren’t the only ones.”

  “You’re still keeping Jamie in your perception field,” he says. She finds a valve at the bottom of the
box. “Maybe you should stop,” he adds.

  “She’s doing just fine.”

  “But it’s draining you. And she’s ready to handle her own reality.”

  Cali snaps the toolbox shut. She turns on the hot water, goes to work on the feed pails, instead. “She needs help, Paul. What I’m doing is no different than an anti-depressant.”

  “It’s not her experience. You’re directing it, making her feel good. She won’t want to leave you.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Because I don’t want to leave,” he says. “Why am I still here?”

  He sounds confused, genuinely seeking an answer for his compliance. She hasn’t manipulated his perception since he arrived, only uses the dogs to monitor his whereabouts. Jamie is coping without him. He’s done his duty, saved her from the warehouse.

  Cali can’t find much history on him. Actually, she hadn’t bothered after the first week. If he was a threat, it was too late. He’s single with no children. He has a brother and a mother. His law enforcement history is still secure, but he’s been on the farm a month and nothing has happened.

  Why is he still here?

  “Are you doing that to me?” he asks. “Making me want to stay?”

  “No.”

  “How do I know?”

  “Trust me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Why should I trust you, Paul?” She soaks her old-looking hands in the warm suds. They feel like someone else’s. “You came here to help the girl. You’re welcome to leave.”

  “Why won’t you help Nix?”

  “I am helping him.”

  She rinses the pails and turns them over to finish air drying. Once her hands are dry, she grabs the tool box.

  He doesn’t move. “I want to help.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “You’re afraid.”

  “You don’t know anything about me. All you know are the rumors and newsfeeds.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “I didn’t invite you into my life.”

  “You don’t invite anything into your life. I’m not a threat, you know that. Nobody is waiting outside your gates. M0ther hasn’t turned us off. So what are you afraid of, Cali? That your tower will fall over? You’ll be exposed to the world again—is that it?